I take back my positive words about Safari 4
Last week I published a post praising the new Safari 4 Beta browser. It was, so I wrote, a fast browser and an improvement over Safari 3.
Well, after using it for a couple of days now I take my words back. This browser is horrible, especially for bloggers. It doesn’t work well at all, it seems to make a habit out of crashing when you’re almost done writing a lengthy post and it has trouble loading a variety of webpages. It’s insane. Very often it doesn’t even show the buttons on my wordpress writing dashboard; seemingly.
In other words: don’t get Safari 4… unless you’re someone like me who enjoys testing browsers and who has a variety of other browsers that do work well. In that case download it but be prepared for a lot of crashes.
What’s so strange about it all is that Safari 3 never crashed, never gave errors and loaded webpages very fast indeed. I realize that most Beta versions of other browsers have problems as well, but Safari 4 Beta has so many problems that I can’t help but say that Apple made a tragic mistake by releasing it. I can’t imagine why they decided the time was right to let people download and use Safari 4 Beta. It just doesn’t work.
So here is some advise for Apple: first get your browser to work, then make it look good. Don’t do it the other way around.
Update: file this in the ‘you won’t believe this department.’ I was writing a post in HTML but changed into VISUAL because this writes more comfortably, etc. Well, the text disappeared completely and it wasn’t saved either. This means that the post is gone.
As if that’s not enough, I can also not incorporate links with the pop up button wordpress uses.
OK – I tested Safari 4, I did my best, I’ll delete it now and reinstall 3.
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I think it would be wise for you to update WordPress. I’m having none of the issues you describe with Safari 4 and WordPress 2.7.
MT: I don’t have all of those issues with my own wordpress either, which is 2.6.5 I believe but I do have them all with Dagelijkse Standaard, another blog I write for, which uses Wordpress 2.7. Before installing Beta 4 Safari worked just fine at both blogs.
OK I have to take part of my words back: the same errors occur with both wordpress installations. Have you tried to do what I said, namelijk to write in visual first, then switch to html and then go back to visual? Try it and let me know whether it works for you (for me it doesn’t).
Also, do you use 2.7 or 2.7.1?
Remember BETA means just that…
-S
Yeah, if you downloaded a public BETA with the thought that there would be no bugs, I don’t know what you are smoking. The BETA means apple is trying to find the bugs and remove them before official release. Just what you asked Apple to do in this post.
But, on that note I have no issues with blogging or text on my system.
I am using Safari 4 beta and have been since just hours after it was released. I never turn my Mac off and Safari runs 24 / 7 as well, I clear the history manually about every 3 days and the cashe about every 2 days. I have had no crashes and no problems loading any of the pages I go to. I am actually using Safari at least 10 hours a day and some days more ( I currently am laid off from my job so I have lots of free time). To top this off I am running it on a 1999 B&W G3 with a 500 mhz G4 upgrade processor, with Tiger 10.4.11. I see Safari 4 as a great improvement over 3, much quicker. I guess I am one of the strange ones since I also like the tabs on top. Maybe your problem wit it is an incompatibility with something else you have installed, hopefully that problem is cause by the fact it is still a beta release.
Yep beta = tell us the bugs.
I never give beta software to users expecting them the use it for real. Beta is so users can find the last bugs and (hopefully) finish up on UAT (user acceptance testing).
Write your blog in a Word Processor and copy it to your blog when done writing/editing it…In general this is a much safer way to write, rather than originally typing it up in a browser window.
And, yes, BETA means BETA.
Even for a beta Safari is very buggy. iLife09, in particular iWeb, was bugged and still is. Now this Safari is the most bugged of any beta I have ever seen. It’s one big bug.
Moreover, it is mere candy for the Apple groupie. It is bling, of use only to those people who don’t really use their Macs for anything serious. The Top Sites is meant to contain only 20 to 25 sites. It’s totally useless and takes a lot of CPU power.
When I had Safari 4 installed it was fast on some sites, but very, very slow on others. So the speed increase is cosmetic. For people who use their computers intensively efficiency has not improved.
So I reinstalled Safari 3, which I don’t use very often either.
My conclusion: Safari 4 is bling, like Faces and Places is bling for the small amateur.
Sean: the I hoped to be able to use 3 at the same time. That was not possible, however. It simply overrides Safari 3 – I wanted to use both version next to each other, which is what I normally do.
Myself: that’s how I see it at this moment as well.
None of these issues with me. I am also using Safari 4 for my blogging. No such issues on WP blog. Probably upgrading may solve yr problem.
While it’s unfortunate that you’re having some trouble, I find it odd that you go on such a rant for problems with one specific site. If anything, that should indicate the problem might be with that site rather than with the browser as a whole. Second, I’ve not had the same troubles with Safari 4 beta while posting to a Wordpress blog. Third, when you evaluate a “beta” product, you discuss the features and performance and make a note about stability issues you’ve encountered. Going off as such on a beta product just makes you look foolish.
Maybe you should set up your WP development on your PC using localhost. When happy with a post cut and paste to the host. This also saves your posts on your own HD.
If you’re having problems backing out of Safari 4 beta, then here’s how:
http://www.markwheadon.com/blog/2009/02/how-to-back-out-of-safari-4beta/
Cheers,
Mark